Ode For New Year's Day Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AAABCBBCDDEDE FGGFHIIJKLLM NONOPQPCQCRRSTSUV WXXW| Woe unto you ye sons of pain that are this day in earth | A |
| Now cry for all your torment now curse your hour of birth | A |
| And the fathers who begat you to a portion nothing worth | A |
| And Thou my own beloved for as brave as ere thou art | B |
| Bow down thine head Despoina clasp thy pale arms over it | C |
| Lie low with fast closed eyelids clenched teeth enduring heart | B |
| For sorrow on sorrow is coming wherein all flesh has part | B |
| The sky above is sickening the clouds of God s hate cover it | C |
| Body and soul shall suffer beyond all word or thought | D |
| Till the pain and noisy terror that these first years have wrought | D |
| Seem but the soft arising and prelude of the storm | E |
| That fiercer still and heavier with sharper lightnings fraught | D |
| Shall pour red wrath upon us over a world deform | E |
| - | |
| Thrice happy O Despoina were the men who were alive | F |
| In the great age and the golden age when still the cycle ran | G |
| On upward curve and easily for them both maid and man | G |
| And beast and tree and spirit in the green earth could thrive | F |
| But now one age is ending and God calls home the stars | H |
| And looses the wheel of the ages and sends it spinning back | I |
| Amid the death of nations and points a downward track | I |
| And madness is come over us and great and little wars | J |
| He has not left one valley one isle of fresh and green | K |
| Where old friends could forgather amid the howling wreck | L |
| It s vainly we are praying We cannot cannot check | L |
| The Power who slays and puts aside the beauty that has been | M |
| - | |
| It s truth they tell Despoina none hears the heart s complaining | N |
| For Nature will not pity nor the red God lend an ear | O |
| Yet I too have been mad in the hour of bitter paining | N |
| And lifted up my voice to God thinking that he could hear | O |
| The curse wherewith I cursed Him because the Good was dead | P |
| But lo I am grown wiser knowing that our own hearts | Q |
| Have made a phantom called the Good while a few years have sped | P |
| Over a little planet And what should the great Lord know of it | C |
| Who tosses the dust of chaos and gives the suns their parts | Q |
| Hither and thither he moves them for an hour we see the show of it | C |
| Only a little hour and the life of the race is done | R |
| And here he builds a nebula and there he slays a sun | R |
| And works his own fierce pleasure All things he shall fulfill | S |
| And O my poor Despoina do you think he ever hears | T |
| The wail of hearts he has broken the sound of human ill | S |
| He cares not for our virtues our little hopes and fears | U |
| And how could it all go on love if he knew of laughter and tears | V |
| - | |
| Ah sweet if a man could cheat him If you could flee away | W |
| Into some other country beyond the rosy West | X |
| To hide in the deep forests and be for ever at rest | X |
| From the rankling hate of God and the outworn world s decay | W |
Clive Staples Lewis
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